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Introduction
In the early 18th century, the increasing preoccupation with individual consciousness crashed with the cultural anxieties of
the late 18th century. This is how the Gothic novel sprang.
The first Gothic novels were the following:
In 1764 -"The castle of Otranto" written by Horace Walpole: http://www.bibliomania.com/0/0/331/2422/frameset.html
In 1786 -"Vathek" by William Beckford.
In 1794 -"The mysteries of Udolpho" by A.Radecliffe.
In 1796 -"The monk" by Matthew Lewis.
In 1817 -"Frankestein" by Mari Shelley.
They all shared a belief in the supernatural, they cultivated the ambience and the mood, they liked the medieval and the
plots of the novels were enigmatic mysterious and usually violent.
The Gothic novelists were said less skilful and subtle in their portrayals and their characters have been considered "flat".
However, the emotions of these characters were externalized in a new and radical way. Their deepest passions and fears were
literalized. At the same time, the nature of the fear seemed to represent their specific historical moment which was
characterized by increasing disillusionment with Enlightenment rationality and by bloody revolutions in America and France.
Moreover, the Gothic novel provided a vehicle to its contemporary readership to explore the excess and taboo, and other
subjects that characterised the political and sexual culture of the ancient r�gime.
Main characteristics
The gothic novel had many romantic and pre-romantic characteristics:
1- The stories were set in wild atmospheres, normally in isolated or exotic places like the ruins of a castle, a
cementery, in the Medieval Times?
2- Fear&mystery: there was this feeling of fear and horror. Death and Isolation.
3- Extraordinary&fantastic elements such as dead people who came back to life or dead bodies and brains put together
creating a monster?
4- They sounded exotic, romantic and especially, Mediterranean, Italian or whatever.
5- Many of the characters were monks and nuns.
6- Not very long although most of the novels in the XVIII were long. These were usually short stories, take for
example Edgar Allan Poe.
7- The plot: Young man or woman who went to live to one of those isolated castles, mansions and there, they met
someone who had come back to life or somebody who was insane, or extraordinary creatures like zombies?
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